" In light of Ignatius' 'Two Standards' and 'The Mystries Done From The Garden To The House Of Annas', at any moment we can be Judas or Peter, a Christian life can be a fine line."

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

No Walter Ciszek,S.J.

Fr. Barrigan and Fr. Kelly willfully committed criminal activities in the United States. Fr. Walter Ciszek was jailed in a Totalitarian Communist Dictatorship for being Persona Christi. To compare Barrigan and Kelly to Ciszek is a false and deceptive comparison that does not elevate Barrigan and Kelly, but does however diminish Ciszek.

More info on Jesuits who died at the hand Communists (here) and NAZIs (here).

Another Jesuit goes to jail for civil disobedience
Posted by Raymond A. Schroth October 30, 2007 2:42PM
Categories: Hot Topics
In the last line of my most recent essay I asked for examples of religious leaders who spoke out boldly against torture. As if in answer to a prayer, the next email brought the news that a Jesuit, Fr. Steve Kelly, S.J., and a Franciscan priest, Fr. Louis Vitale, O. F. M., had been sentenced to five months in federal prison for a nonviolent act of civil disobedience. On Nov. 19, 2006, they knelt down at the entrance to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, while delivering a letter to the commandant denouncing methods of "interrogation training" taught at that fort. Remarkably, the news came not in an AP news release, but in a public letter addressed to all members of the American Society of Jesus and our lay partners in ministry from Rev. John P. McGarry, S.J., the provincial of the California Province, throwing the full personal and moral weight of the society behind their protest. I can imagine that some civic, religious, and educational leaders consider priests and faculty who provoke nonviolent confrontations with government authorities over moral issues an embarrassment. What will everybody say? What about our benefactors, financial contributors, alumni? Why can't these protesters quietly write letters to the editor like everyone else? Because they welcome the arrest and a public trial as a way of educating the public. They accept incarceration to demonstrate that they're willing to suffer for what they believe. Jesuits have a long history of going to prison. Saint Ignatius Loyola, our founder, was locked up by the Spanish Inquisition because some of his spiritual teaching looked suspicious.
Under Queen Elizabeth, English Jesuits -- and Irish Jesuits like Dominic Collins, whose feast is celebrated today -- were jailed, tortured, and hanged. During World War II and the Cold War, Polish-American Walter Ciszek, S.J., disappeared for years into a series of Soviet prison camps. And Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., of New York, faced arrest and prison many times for his opposition to the Vietnam and other wars. I remember vividly the events of Nov. 16, 1989, when the Salvadoran army in the middle of the night broke into the Jesuit residence at the University of Central America and murdered -- blew their brains out -- six Jesuits and two women co-workers. Dan Berrigan, who was a guest professor at Loyola University New Orleans, where I was teaching journalism, organized a group of students to block the entrance to the United States Post Office in order to protest the financial and logistical aid the U. S. had given to the very same military organization that had committed the crime. One of the policemen who had come to arrest the protesters came up to Fr. Gerald Fagin, S.J., a mild mannered theologian who was Dan's religious superior, and presuming that a religious superior could not possibly agree with this radical action, asked him to tell Dan to forget it all and go home. Fr. Fagin replied that he was there to support Dan, not call him off. Link (here)

About Me

I am not a Jesuit, nor am I a cleric. I spent about 5 years under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit, 3 of those years in a weekly directed retreat in everyday life. The profound impact that the Society and the Excercises had upon my life, resulted in me, trying to deal with that impact in some way by sharing my view of Jesus Christ with others. My intention is to pull together Jesuitical and Catholic subjects that interest me. I was born on the feast day of St. Paul Miki, S.J.. I am the father of three small children and an infant, I am married to a great wife.